I want to hike 52 different hikes for this 52-hikes-in-52-weeks challenge, and now with snow in the mountains around the valley, I have to find trails closer to home. A friend who wanted to come along on hike #3 suggested the Greenway. I consider going on the Greenway a walk, not a hike, but limited by my friend’s schedule we decided to walk/hike out from my home to the first freeway underpass and back, 5 miles or so.

I realize I may have become a bit snobbish about what I consider a hike and need to re-consider my definitions. The Oxford English Dictionary defines hiking as a long walk for pleasure, but when does a walk become a hike? When I hike from Etna summit to Payne’s lake on the PCT, the distance is 5 miles and I consider that a hike. I guess length of the walk/hike isn’t the issue, because my 3 mile hike up Ostrich Peak last week I considered a (short) hike. The Bear Creek Greenway is green, there is wildlife, there are ponds, a river, wetlands, so being in nature as a determinant doesn’t apply either.

What then makes the difference between a walk and a hike? Difficulty of terrain? I’ve hiked stretches of the PCT that felt like a highway and weren’t difficult. Bike access? No that doesn’t turn the hike into a walk. I’ve hiked multi-use trails that were accessible to bicycles that I considered a hike because the dirt trail was in nature away from streets and houses. Pavement? When you hike the 490 miles on the Camino in Spain and much of the “trail” is paved, does it become a walk? Maybe pavement is the determinant; indeed people usually say they “walked” the Camino.

Our Greenway is a community trail. It was built in sections – with continuous community involvement and fundraising – in 1973, 1980, 1995, and 1998. The Greenway is now a 17.9 mile trail/bicycle path that connects communities in the Rogue Valley. It runs along a tributary to the Rogue River, Bear Creek.I can access the Greenway in a five-minute walk from my home.

I walk and talk with my friend on the path. My body takes in the light. The dried grasses wave in the wind. The clear blue sky reflects the cold light, moves the icy wind and tightens my face. I talk, but notice, and feel the slight incline and descent of this river’s wetlands in my calves, the spring in my feet. I hear birds screeching, water rushing and know that nature is providing for animals that live here.The freeway to the East makes an ever-rushing ocean sound.

As I walk, I think about the power of a trail, what it does and offers to humans and animals. Some trails take me away from my community and let me enter the surrounding wilderness, but this one lets me experience my community as people and bicycles pass me (interesting, no dogs today). The Greenway lets me walk the length of this valley without having to get into a car, it lets me know the place where I live at a pace my body can integrate. I mostly walk the trail from my home to where my town ends on the North end, about half the length of my town. I can walk south and do the same. I can know my town from one end to the other without cars rushing by. In my life time ever faster moving transportation modes have robbed us of that intimacy of place.

I walk and talk and greet other walkers, move over for an occasional bicyclist. As we reach the underpass, I want to keep walking, walk the whole 18 miles of this trail. Does it become a hike when I do that? I’m still confused. John Muir, the famous naturalist and hiker, didn’t worry about the difference when he said, “I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out until sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.” It may take a few more hikes/walks before I figure out what the difference between walking and hiking is for me. Stay tuned!